Hello everyone.
My name is Audrey, and I am a Junior in University. My major is International and Global Studies, which requires me to go abroad for at least one semester in order to graduate with my degree. When I first started pursuing my degree, I had thought I would go to France since I had taken French all through high school and for one semester in college. But plans change. After deciding to take Chinese 101 for a challenge, I fell in love with the language, and decided it was time to dream big and go somewhere that I had never imagined I would go, Beijing, China.
So on February 15th I will be getting on a plane (for the first time ever, mind you), and jetting off into the unknown! Or at least unknown to me! I will be spending one semester studying at the Beijing University of Technology, where I will be focusing on Chinese language courses. I'm very nervous about going, but of course excited too. I cannot wait to meet new people who will share their lives with me, and I am hoping that my Chinese fluency will improve a lot from this trip.
Now you're probably wondering why this blog is an excursion which includes Vietnam. After my semester in Beijing, I will be visiting a friend in Hangzhou and then heading to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for nearly two months. There I will be doing something that is in my opinion equally as nerve racking as going to China. I will be meeting my boyfriend's family for the first time there (his name is Huy, he is from Vietnam, studying in my University in the USA). So I am happy to be going there to get to see his country and meet his family, but naturally I am nervous due to the fact that I am not anywhere close to being able to hold a conversation in Vietnamese, which may be a problem. I am trying to study on my own time, but I feel Chinese is easier, which may sound crazy. I think I need to get over the initial hump of opening my mind to the language before my brain can easily accept these new sounds.
In this blog, I will be keeping you, the readers, updated, but this is also for me to be able to look back and reflect on my time abroad. I would like to keep a traditional diary or journal or what have you, but I have a feeling that it would just be too hard to sit down and write, by hand, what is going on in my life. Plus I like the idea of being able to share my experiences with others, as well as photos! There will be many photos! Promise!
I will end this post here, but update as the time of departure creeps closer. :)
Bon Voyage et amuse-toi bien.
ReplyDeleteMerci, Madame!! Tu me manques!!! <3
Deletepeople may think that Vietnamese and Chinese language are completely different, due to how the characters look like. but in fact, they are very similar. Vietnamese language was based on Chinese. There are plenty of words in those 2 languages that have same meanings. If you know this, it would be easier to study Vietnamese.
ReplyDeletep.s: I'm Being There from interpals :)